Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle was a French American sculptor, painter and film-maker, born near Paris and raised partly in New York. She first became known for her shooting paintings, assemblages with hidden bags of paint that she fired at with a rifle. Her Nanas, big, joyful and brightly painted female figures, followed, and with Jean Tinguely she made the Stravinsky Fountain in Paris. Her life’s work was the Tarot Garden in Tuscany, a park of huge mosaic-covered sculptures.